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Herbal Tooth Powder For Healthy Teeth And Gums: UPDATED

If you haven’t already heard of toothpaste being a scam, here’s some news for you. Many kinds of toothpaste including those that are being sold as herbal toothpaste have chemicals that are detrimental to your dental health. Especially ‘whitening’ toothpaste tend to contain more abrasives which damage your tooth enamel. Discoloration and heightened sensitivity happen when your tooth enamel is damaged.

Some other harmful chemicals are triclosan which helps prevent gingivitis but at the cost of causing endocrine disruption and antibiotic resistance. SLS causes skin irritation and canker sores. Many kinds of toothpaste also contain Aspartame which eventually becomes formaldehyde causing damage to your tissues. Fluoride is a known cause for decaying teeth. Apart from these chemicals, you will find a myriad of others if you check the label of your toothpaste. Even the herbal one’s put a few herbs like 2-3% and all the rest are the usual chemical concoction. I would also highly recommend reading Dr.Mercola’s article on this subject.

So, what is the alternative? Many things. In fact, if you are on a predominately fruit and vegetable diet, you might not need to brush your teeth often. Many fruits like Strawberries and Bananas clean your teeth naturally. But if you have a regular diet like many people, you can use baking soda, coconut oil, turmeric, neem powder or Babool powder. (Of course, do not use the turmeric you get for cooking as they are laced with additives. Please use organically sourced turmeric).

Baking soda by itself can be very abrasive to your teeth. I would recommend oil pulling with coconut oil and then brushing with baking soda. Turmeric mixed with coconut oil will also work wonders, it will make your teeth clean and due to its antibacterial properties prevent cavities. You can also make your own tooth powder by following this simple recipe!

Simple 3 Ingredient Tooth Powder Recipe

This particular recipe has three main ingredients. The bottom layer is pomegranate peel powder, the second layer is babool powder. The third is neem powder.

Pomegranate peel helps fight bad breath, gingivitis, carries and mouth ulcers. It can also be used for your skin as it is a great moisturizer and acts as a natural sunscreen.

Babool powder: If you are lucky enough to find a twig of this tree, please brush using that. Chew off one end, which will result in bristles much like a tooth brush’s bristles and uses it to brush your teeth. The rest of us have to make do with a powder. The tannin in babool makes teeth whiter much better than your abrasive tooth whitening toothpaste!

Neem powder: This super herb prevents bad breath, dental caries, cavities due to its astringent and antiseptic properties. It will also help heal and prevent gum diseases, prevent inflammation and reduce plaque.

How to source these powders?

The easiest is pomegranate powder. Sun-dry the peels until they harden. Grind them in a coffee grinder. Sift and store in an airtight, glass container. Please don’t use plastic as they leech chemicals into whatever you put in them.

I bought both pomegranate peel and babool powder on amazon. You can find them here. The company Dark forest sells powders of herbs and seeds and they are GMP certified Indian company. They have paper packaging and do not test on animals.

I sourced the neem for a local store in Tamilnadu. You can find neem powder in Dark forest too. But for this recipe, I am using this neem powder.

How should I use it?

You can mix a small amount of all three powders and use it as a tooth powder, directly on your teeth. However, with this method, I highly advise you to do oil-pulling with coconut oil and then brush with the tooth powder.

OR

You can mix a little coconut oil with the three powders to make a paste and brush your teeth and gums. If you have any dental or gum problems currently, after brushing your teeth and gums with these powders, just keep it in your teeth and gums for a few minutes before washing it off with water.

UPDATE: At the time of doing this review, I honestly believed this would work. However, after several months of trial, I am sorry to report that this no longer works. Neem oil seems to be a better option (because it is better absorbed by the gums) rather than Neem powder.

However, if you had a different experience using these powders or anything, please send me an email and I’d love to talk about it.

I mix coconut oil just before brushing. The powders are kept in their dry form. I have not tried lavang oil. Finding cold pressed clove oil (not the essential oils which are sold to be used in evaporators) is difficult because there is no regulation for them and consuming them would not be the safest.